Saturday, November 07, 2015

RIP, KXL

Unless Hillary Clinton revives it in 2017, when oil prices rebound because of the war she starts with Iran. New Middle East war or not, she might need to kickstart her 2020 re-election campaign with some Big Oil Super PAC lube.

Somebody get that polar bear a sandwich

Today is a day to celebrate, however, so I'll pause the snark. From Vox:

An attack of activism: Climate change activists have had the Keystone XL pipeline in their sites since Obama's first term, and helped make it a serious partisan issue. They probably do deserve some credit for killing the pipeline.

Let's remember that Canadian tar sands oil is still flowing through the US at a rate somewhere between 300,000 and 700,000 barrels a day since January 2014 via Keystone South, which runs from Cushing, OK to Houston and mid-Jefferson County, Texas, where it is being refined. And that tar sands oil rides the rails from Alberta to Cushing in what has become colloquially known as "exploding bomb trains". And that there are at least five other pipelines which never required State Department approval to pump tar sands oil directly from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast right from the jump, several years ago.